Monthly Archives: June 2005

I mentioned recently how Canada has now legalized gay marriage (and Spain just did as well), and of course you know that recent US law changes have chased BME out of America and put Rachel and I at risk of arrest if we step foot inside its borders (even me as a Canadian)… But I wanted to mention one other fascinating legal change in Canada:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has said that discriminating against people with piercings or tattoos is a violation of our Human Rights Code. (!!!)

Now, I'm sure a lot of people think that's going too far (and maybe it is), and it's currently a non-binding interpretation from them, but it's pretty bold on their part, and I think goes well with the PM's statement that Canada is “a nation of minorities”.

I'm not going to tell you this is ethical, but it's sort of funny? After catching this catfish in South Africa, the submittor put a ring through the hole from the hook and returned it to the water… I can't imagine what the next person to catch it will think.

Anyway… back south of the border, the US government (who just voted themselves a pay raise) are trying to ban people with “liberal politics” (or dual citizenships) from owning baseball teams (although neo-Nazis are still allowed to) — sadly, I kid you not. And in Chicago, the insane war on drugs has now expanded to even making anything that tastes similar to pot illegal.

I'm sure the ultrarich are thanking “God” (this is a corporate theocracy) that the average voter is stupid enough to believe Bush's constant claims that 9-11 and Iraq are linked — hell, everything is linked with 9-11 these days. It certainly filled the recent Bush speech, and some Republicans are still directlylinking it, even though every shred of evidence suggests the opposite… I'm starting to get the impression that the average American is a coward — hit them once (a la 9-11), and all you have to do is remind them they got hurt once and you can force them with fear to do anything you want. And the amazing thing is these depths of cowardice are wrapped up in the most vitriolic patriotic rhetoric.

Don't dare criticize your masters. Look at Senator Durbin, who'd criticized the US use of torture (killing dozens of innocent people in the process) — he was first forced to apologize for saying torture was wrong (not that this is anything new), and then got ripped to shreds for doing so. Or look at nutcase Robert Franz, an arsonist who lit private homes on fire, has 91 arrests under his belt, and convicted this time of 25 cases of arson… He got seven years for damaging millions of dollars worth of private property and risking the lives of hundreds of people. On the other hand, take Jeff Luers. As an act of political protest he lit three SUVs on fire at a dealership — he got 22 years in prison.

I am very very happy to say that today Canada fully legalized gay marriage. Our Prime Minister (ie. “President”) said on the matter, This “is about the Charter of Rights. We are a nation of minorities. And in a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about.”

The piece of shit right wingers, led by bigots from — no surprise — Alberta, promise to work to win the next election so they can repeal Canada's Charter of Rights, saying — I kid you not — that Canada's quest for “a just society” is what's wrong with the nation. Seriously, fuck them. Canada seeking to create a just nation is what's good about Canada, and what makes it Canada.

Another Liberal MP rejected the Conservative hatemongering, saying, “I have not compromised my faith in supporting this legislation. I have embraced it. The fact that we (in Canada) are among the first is not something we should hide. It's something we should celebrate. [We are] a nation of equality. A nation of strength. A nation of compassion. A nation that believes we're stronger together than we are apart. And a nation where we celebrate equality; we will send a statement to the world that in Canada gays and lesbians will not be considered second-class citizens.”

And, in typical Conservative fashion, the reply from the right wing was — again, I kid you not — “I'm sick and tired of hearing people talking about rights.”

I am very happy that BME's servers are back in Canada and that my tax dollars are again supporting a nation going in the right direction.

First of all, people have been asking me what time the server will be going offline tomorrow and what time the server will be going online on Thursday. Short answer: I don't know exactly. Rachel may be able to post an hour or two before it goes down but we can't make any promises. There is a small chance that it will come up before Thursday but again I can't promise it. If there are DNS issues, I will post a numeric IP login to BME, and I will also post there when it's back up since BME will have at most a minute or two of downtime.

Note: I can't send out new memberships until at least tomorrow night, although I have processed tons of images and many are pending. My apologies for the inconvenience.

As well as processing images (unfortunately I can't post a BME update until Thursday due to the server move), I've been trying to crack my writers block on coming up with a contributor's shirt — I've been collecting addresses to do a drawing for lots of prizes but haven't had a good idea for the reward yet…

”The deeper the change that we want to execute is, the more interest we need to raise for it.”

I know there's a lot of communists on IAM, but I'm not sure if that shirt could get a person in trouble these days in America? I'm pretty sure that once the gulags get fired up in earnest, you'll see a lot of your compatriots wearing tattoos akin to the following:

On a more pleasant (or at least whacky) body modification note, my old friend pierced just did a new nasallang piercing on himself with an extremely high placement and it's pretty wild looking…

I don't think I have any pictures of one that's ever been done that high?

Other than that, Rachel, Jon, and I are planning a trip to Japan as soon as we have enough airmiles to take the trip for free… Every time my kooky Japanese nudist friends KitanoKaryuudo post pictures of Eva stripping at some beautiful park I want to go more and more (for the landscape scenery, honest!). Japan just looks more and more amazing the more I see of it.

If you want to see more, you can of course check out their page or their massive and ever-growing BME/HARD gallery. Well, I'm off for the day!

I love Blair's new patches… I think I've got to talk to him about printing it as a shirt! But seeing it reminded me — we've been talking about running another “branding contest” (to win a brand by Blair). Any suggestions on how that contest should be set up?

If you're still in La Paz and looking for something to do here for the next day or two, consider dropping an IM to Jon (1101001) who can hook you up with some amazing fishing… You may know him from the Fishing Fury site already. He went out today; here are a couple pictures of the result:

If you want to go fishing, message him now so there's enough time to get it all set up!!!

Other than that, if you came and had fun, be sure to thank Rachel who single-handedly made this event happen. She doesn't like taking credit for the work that she does and is happy to watch people thanking me for the great time, but honestly, it's literally all her.

Anyway, I'm going to go have dinner now (at La Pazta) and then maybe play with Rhino a little more. I was drawing cars for practise but I want to use it to design the hulls for my boat.